Thursday, May 04, 2006

Judge Jones: Influential in this "Time?"

Judge John E. Jones, III, the judge who ruled in the recent Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, has appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in their recent issue featuring the 100 most influential people. What did Judge Jones do that was so influential? He attempted to privatize all liquor stores in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as the Chairperson of the Liquor Control Board. He failed on that attempt, however. What else did he do that was so influential? He banned "Bad Frog Beer" on the grounds that its label was obscene.

But he won this honor as Judge John Jones. What did he do as a judge that was so influential? Oh yes, that's right, he banned the mention of intelligent design from science classes, he revoked freedom of academia and freedom of thought from students, and he demonstrated his great lack of knowledge concerning intelligent design, evolution, and the U.S. Constitution. So how, exactly, is Judge Jones influential?

Perhaps he is influential because very few, if any, federal judges before him has displayed so much ignorance. Or perhaps he has influenced others to make unreasonable decisions to destroy the education of students. Maybe Time was thinking along the lines of other historical figures that have won "Man of the Year"-- people like Adolpf Hitler (1938), Joesph Stalin (1939, 1942), Nikita Krushchev (1957), and Ayatullah Khomeini (1979).

Either way, congratulations to Judge Jones on joining a long line of famous, or infamous, leaders. Hopefully the dictatorship he aims to set up in education falls like the dicatorships set up in governments by Hitler and Stalin.

9 comments:

Your first paragraph contains much which is irrelevant, your second paragraph contains even more which is unsubstantiated, your third paragraph Godwin's your post before anyone could even comment, and your concluding paragraph shows no indication that it is based in reality.

For this I have four sets of questions:

-Why does it matter that Judge Jones found Bad Frog Beer offensive? What possible relevance does this have concerning his decision in Dover?

-How exactly is Judge Jones's knowledge lacking in matters of intelligent design? I don't expect you to answer this directly, but rather would prefer you to point me to a piece someone else has already written on this topic.

-Of what significance is it that TIME also included Stalin and Hitler on their covers? How could the mentioning of these people be anything other than an implicit appeal to emotion?

-How can you possibly compare the notion that science be taught in science classrooms with the murderous regimes of historical persons? Where is your intellectual integrity?

As everybody else who has read this post pointed out its idiocy, I just thought that I would point out that a political science major is the director of the Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center (IDURC). ID research? I'd bet dollars to donuts that undergraduate ID research (is there even graduate ID research??) consists of copying YEC material, and doing "Find/Replace creationism/ID. What a tool!

I understand that it is still possible to get something of an education in the sciences at ole Southern Baptist U. You might want to try it, unless you actually enjoy blathering about topics you do not understand.

Or you might try to reconcile your voodoo-born preconceived notions with your current field of study. Say, how about Jesus the Federalist? Can you pull that one off? How about The Laissez Faire Christ? Y’know, the best god is the one that makes the least demands of his self-governing subjects?

It's sad really that Mr. Chen will probably never open up a modern genetics book or crack open Cover & Thomas so that he might actually understand Dembski's papers. But then what fun would be the web without people with strongly held beliefs on subjects they never bothered to study?

No, no! Don't you see? If we cut and paste directly from YEC to ID then the grand science of intelligent design will be tainted by religion. No, we must hire middle-men, old-earth "scientific" creationists, to cut and paste YEC arguments, and THEN, we cut and paste THEIR arguments to make them ID.Duh.

About

Samuel Chen is a graduate of Baylor University and the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, where he previously served as chapter president for the American Scientific Affiliation. He previously conducted research on issues relating to faith and science for the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and continues to work with the Access Research Network. -----------------
(Please note that the views and opinions expressed on this website do not necessarily represent those of my employer.)